


Terra Nullius

by xSpookyScarySkeletonsx



Series: Compos Mentis [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: but what else is new, instead of flowers we’re talking about the sea this time, ralph’s state of mind is questionable, this is just fake poetic babbling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-26 20:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17148767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xSpookyScarySkeletonsx/pseuds/xSpookyScarySkeletonsx
Summary: Another step in Ralph’s descend into madness.





	Terra Nullius

**Author's Note:**

> Since my partner’s parents cancelled our Christmas plans last minute and we don’t have anywhere else to go, I’ve actually had time to write today so ta-dah, I guess.

The rain beat down heavily against the boarded up windows, a stark contrast to the water slowly dripping down through the holes in the roof, leaving puddles on the already filthy floor. Yet the noise wasn’t enough to drown out the howling of the wind, sinking its stormy claws into the lose and torn up facade of the building. 

It was loud and terrible. Ralph wished the storm would go away, would leave him alone like the world had left him.

His rage had faded long ago, worn down by time and the knowledge that he could do nothing about the weather. It wasn’t human, couldn’t be suffocated until the sky turned blue again.

Blue like the face of the woman before the life had left her eyes. She had deserved it, her shrill voice grating on his wires and fibers until Ralph had snapped. But that was a long time ago. Or perhaps only yesterday, he wasn’t quite sure.

It didn’t matter, not really. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do. All he had was time and the storm raging outside, like a lonely traveler lost at sea.

 

The sea, Ralph thought, was a wondrous thing. Of course he’d never seen it, not in person at least, only in pictures and videos. And still he felt a connection to it that was hard to explain. It was a lot like him in that it was unpredictable: soft, gentle waves in one moment and a furious torrent in the next. Forever changing, moving, impossibly uncontainable.

But Ralph didn’t want to be like the incoming tide, tearing down everything that stood in its path. He wanted to be like the shallow water of a beautiful lagoon, curling waves so crystal clear that they hid nothing dark underneath.

 

It was almost poetic.

Poetic, it seemed the right word to use. Ralph had looked it up, had scanned through all the poems his processor could handle. Didn’t understand a lot of them, maybe most of them. Experiences he couldn’t relate to, feelings he had never experienced. But the words were so beautiful, woven together like threads of a string, guiding him to a destination he could never quite see.

He could play pretend, act like he knew where he was, a million miles away from here. Somewhere warm and sunny, waves caressing the shore in a never-ending motion. The sky so blue Ralph couldn’t make out where it ended and the water began.

He imagined a house - no, a home - filled with warmth, large open windows allowing the salty breeze to enter. Maybe even a friend, or a family, to occupy the empty spaces, filling them with life.

And so Ralph pretended, sweeping the floors, cleaning the counters, re-arranging the crumbling furniture. Then he even ventured outside, just onto the patio but out nevertheless, to pull out the weeds sprouting from the cracks in the concrete as if they, too, were trying to escape their prison. But despite working tirelessly, Ralph was never done. Dust seemed to return even quicker every time he removed it, cobwebs gathering in the corners of the rooms. The furniture never seemed to quite find its right place. Even the weeds returned, over and over again.

And yet he didn’t mind because the work kept the thoughts at bay, because playing pretend distracted him from the loneliness gnawing its way through his wires.

The sound of the falling rain became the waves crashing into the shore. Winter’s icy breath streaming through the boarded up and broken windows became a gentle, warm breeze that brought in the salty smell of the ocean. Even the constant drone of the highway morphed until it only resembled palm trees creaking in the breeze, fronds shifting against one another.

In the end, little by little, day by day, the lines between what was real and what was only make-believe shifted and blurred until Ralph couldn’t tell them apart anymore.

He knew he was going insane with a strange clarity. It was the only thing that still bound him to reality, still provided a reminder that there was a world out there, a place very different to the one in his mind.

But Ralph didn’t find it in himself to care. After all what was the point of staying in the real world if his made-up one was so much kinder?


End file.
